Molly, Tom, Barb and I spent a week in a chalet at the Ropferhof Guesthouse in the Tirol region of Austria. The property is set next to a large network of hiking trails and consists of a chalet, large guesthouse and the Ropferstub’m restaurant which sit high above the Inn Valley, overlooking Alpine peaks . The owners,…

On day two we ascended three times higher than the previous day on Alta Badia, and landed on what looked and felt like the moon. It was unreal, and such a total departure from the lush meadows and rolling hills of the mountains below. As I write this two weeks later, we’re still drunk off…

Previously unknown and unimagined by three of us (except for Adam who had placed the Dolomites at the top of his list of things to see in Europe), we were collectively FLOORED (like jaws on the ground) by the vast landscape of uniquely laudable mountains in every direction.

The first thing we noticed about the Alps is that everyone is using the hiking trails: we’ve seen numerous 3 year-olds scaling peaks with their parents and an endless string of 80 year-old couples have passed by us on trails above the treeline.

Over the top of the ridge we came across a mountain of garbage on the hillside of a mostly abandoned homestead. Past the homestead, seemingly out of nowhere, was a decaying WWII bunker overlooking the entirety of the bay.

Adam and I hiked up to Stoliv Gornjl, by all appearances a ghost town, situated on the side of the Vrmac peninsula behind our house. We read about this trail through Marianne van Twillert, a Dutch woman who writes an in-depth blog about living in Montenegro.